Tuesday November 7 2006
Cantyre County, North Channel, Scotland
Alistair Bryce woke, for want of a better term, in his usual manner: with a groan and a hand over his eyes, feeling like Death had been scheduled to visit but had lost his address. He rolled slowly to the edge of his bed, mindful of his pounding head that, like a bomb, threatened to explode if jostled. He threw off sheets that hadn't been changed anytime in recent memory, put his feet on the floor, and sat with his head between his knees.
Once he felt he could stand without falling over, he rose and shuffled towards the bathroom, trying to decide which to do first – piss, throw up, or brush his teeth. The decision being beyond his present faculties, he changed course, toeing aside empty tins, dirty dishes, and old newspapers as he navigated towards the kitchen and his dwindling stock of Glenlivet.
He opened the cabinet and took down his last bottle with shaking hands. He told himself he wasn't really starting again as soon as he woke up; he just needed a taste, the hair of the dog, a dose of medicine to get right again. I won't take another till noon, at least. I can show that much self-control, surely.
He poured two fingers into a glass and downed it. But he didn't put the bottle back in the cupboard, instead carrying it by its neck through the cluttered sitting room. On his way, he passed the house's only clock, which showed a time of ten-forty. He eyed it blearily as he deposited the bottle on the table by his favorite chair. Till noon. Surely.
He managed a sort of morning toilet, brushing his teeth and running a razor over his face without looking in a mirror, then taking a shower behind a curtain so scummy its original color was uncertain. The delivery boy was due today, and Alistair supposed he should keep up appearances.
He knew better, actually; he knew his reputation among the folk here, and saw it in the delivery boy's eyes whenever he traded cash for a bag of staples and another of whiskey bottles at the front door. But Alistair's little attempt was less for the few visitors to his arse-end-of-the-world retirement cottage than for himself.
He stepped out the front door, blinking at the light from the hazy sky and coughing a couple of times in the fresh air, and retrieved his daily paper from the stoop without a glance at the rolling scenery around his cottage. Then he made his way to the sitting room and the big chair that was the only furniture in the house still clear enough to sit on. He settled in, turned on the radio on the table beside his chair – he didn't own a television – and tuned it to a 'soccer' match as he studied the clock, which now read eleven twenty-three.
He opened the paper and discarded most of it, starting with the front section; the news was what the Powers dictated, and he wouldn't believe it – or care - if the front page contained an announcement about the end of the world. He scanned the back pages for gossipy tidbits from home, trustworthy because they were irrelevant, and then lost himself in the sports news. Never a follower as a younger man, he'd become an avid Rangers fan since his 'retirement' from International Operations, and had even wagered on a few games in the local pub before he'd been banned.
Well, not banned, really; he'd simply tired of the patrons smiling behind their hands at his Nova Scotian accent, and he'd addressed them at large, telling them that, to his ears, they all sounded like a bunch of bloody Englishmen. He supposed it would be some time yet before the proprietor would be willing to serve him again.
The clock read eleven fifty-five. Close enough. He reopened the single-malt and downed a quarter of it at a go, then wiped his streaming eyes and settled in again to wait for the delivery boy. After that, he decided wearily, he'd step out back and take a walk, and test his willpower in a different way.
Some time later, he heard a knock at the door. He'd ceased to look at the clock the moment the whiskey was at his lips, instead gauging the passage of time from the level of the bottle. He studied it now. Half full still. He's early.
But something was off about the boy's knock: instead of the usual side-of-the-fist pounding sometimes necessary to wake him, this request for entry was sharp and light and polite-sounding. His mood changed from detached interest to uneasy suspicion as he rose. I've lived like a hermit since they let me go. They wouldn't have come for me. But the discomfort grew until another thought surfaced. If it was them, they wouldn't have bothered about knocking. But his nerves still sang as he parted the front curtains.
Instead of the delivery boy's bicycle, an auto stood in the gravel lane that ended in front of his door. His unease rose another notch. He distrusted visitors, even when he was fairly sure they hadn't come to kill him. He opened the door halfway, and the can-I-help-you died of fear on its way to his lips.
A young girl in a dark wool coat and cap regarded him without expression. "Hello, Alistair."
His vision shrank to a tunnel focused on her face. His lips pursed to say her name, but just then he couldn't have spoken to save his life.
She lifted an eyebrow and turned the corners of her mouth up in the suggestion of a smile, neither of which he'd ever seen her do. "You remember me." While he struggled to find his voice, she added, "Kind of a surprise, I bet."
Then the words came. "What are ye doing here?"
Behind her, dark spots began to speckle the car's dusty windshield. She looked elaborately up at the sky. "Getting wet. May I?"
As if I could stop you. He stepped aside.
She stepped in and removed the cap, uncovering the boyishly short blonde hair he remembered. She looked around, and her faint smile disappeared. "Cleaning girl hasn't been in lately?"
"Dismissed her." Simply stopped coming, actually. How long have they been watching me? Stupid question. They've been watching me forever. "What…" He stopped and began again. "Why did they send you?"
"They didn't." She righted a tipped bookend on a shelf. "You might say I'm an independent agent these days." She turned to him. "Curious. I practically had to stage a demonstration before Andy recognized me. But you knew me as soon as you opened the door."
"Andy?"
She nodded. "Sergeant Grissom. Griss." She ghosted through the sitting room without stepping on a thing and disappeared into the kitchen. He could hear the cupboard doors opening and closing. "Pretty bare in here."
"It's delivery day," he said before he thought. He tried to think of a way to warn the lad off; he was sure she wouldn't permit witnesses. He was still at the open door, and she was in the next room and out of sight. Might he bolt for it?
Don't be stupid. You wouldn't get ten meters. "I'm going to the bathroom. All right?"
"It's your house, Alistair." She added something too low to catch, but he didn't ask her to repeat.
He locked the bathroom door, for all the good it would do, and sat on the toilet until the shakes came and went. When he felt steady enough, he opened the door and looked out. She was nowhere in sight, but he heard clinking and thumping noises from the kitchen. He couldn't imagine what she was doing in there, but perhaps the noise might cover his escape. He put on a coat, went to the back door, and eased it open.
"Going somewhere?"
He jumped. Her voice was a step behind him.
"Ah, just testing the air. The rain's stopped for now." An idea occurred. It was only the thought of the boy's peril that gave him the courage to put it into action. "Why don't we go for a walk?"
Her eyes searched his for a moment. She had gray-blue eyes, very pretty. He'd once thought he saw trust in those eyes, long ago. Just before you left her to die. "All right," she said. "Let me get my coat."
He blurted, "Why do ye bother?"
She smiled again, more widely than before. "And what would someone think, seeing me out without a coat?" She fetched it from a chair back and shrugged into it, pulling her hat from a pocket as she returned. "Let's go."
He led her along the path that started at his back door and wound among mossy outcroppings and small, stunted trees; the wind never died here. They tended southerly as they walked a gentle decline falling towards the sea. He'd always trod this path alone, but over the past three years, his unsteady feet had made the path wide enough for two, barely.
He started when she slipped her arm through his – to keep him from running, no doubt. "Andy said you lived on a golf course. I was picturing one of those retirement communities with little condos fencing in the greens."
He swallowed. "The land belongs to the Macrihanish Golf Club, right enough, but they don't use it all. The cottage was here when they bought the parcel."
"I wonder if he was employing a little misdirection. He didn't want to tell me where you were, at first. It took a lot of persuasion."
I'll bet, he thought, and carefully turned his mind from dwelling on images of that 'persuasion.' The poor sod. He should have just told her and had done. He worked his tongue and swallowed to wet his throat. "I suppose you've got questions for me as well."
"Quite a few." She pulled closer. "But they can wait."
Maybe not.
"You come this way often?"
"Almost every day. Great view," he said, gesturing towards the misty sky and the indistinct horizon.
She giggled, startling him into a momentary lapse of concentration.
"No, really," he said. "On a clear day, if I look to the southwest, I can see Ireland." He stared off into the haze. "And if I look due west, whether it's clear or not, I sometimes see Canada."
"You miss it very much. I can hear it in your voice." She tilted her face up to him. "You must be so tired of hiding."
He nodded, unable to speak. They approached the cliff where the path ended. The gray sea stretched off into the mist and disappeared. A hundred meters below, he could hear the waves spending themselves on the narrow beach.
He slipped his arm out of hers. "Wait here a moment." He half expected her to grab him, but she let him walk ahead to the edge. He turned to face her. "Don't come any closer. Hear me out."
Her eyes widened in a perfect mimicry of alarm. "What are you doing?"
"Giving myself a choice." The crashing of the waves below was much louder here. He leaned back into the wind. "I'm not afraid to die, not really. But I'm verra fraid of pain. Ask your questions, and I promise to answer any I'm comfortable with. When we're done, I'll just step back."
The wind slacked for a moment, or perhaps it was just the drink, but he rocked back and almost fell. She took a step towards him and stopped. He steadied and went on. "Everybody knows I'm a sot. When I don't answer the door, the boy will call the constable. They'll find a well-worn path to this cliff, and me at the bottom of it. No evidence of foul play." He watched her expression smooth out into the doll mask he remembered, no more pretense. "I know I owe you, maybe more than this. But it's all I'm prepared to pay."
She was still as a mannequin for a long moment. "Well," she said, her voice barely audible above the wind. "So that's why you've been so jumpy. I thought it was just surprise and booze nerves." Then she folded her arms and turned her back on him.
He almost stepped back in surprise. "What are ye doin?"
She took a step towards the cottage, then another. "Leaving. If you really want to k-k-kill yourself, you're not using me for an excuse." At the third step, she fell to her knees and shivered. "You were my only friend in that awful place. How could you think I'd ever hurt you?"
January 2 1998
Eastern Nevada
She roused from standby mode, alerted by a change in her environment. She was still in her box, but it was no longer being jostled. Her internal clock showed that she had been locked inside it for sixty-eight hours, twelve minutes, and in motion for most of that time. The heavy steel container's insulation stopped almost all sound, but a high-pitched whine came faintly through its door as it was lowered, and she felt the floor thump as it touched down. Then the box was tilted again for a short time as it was turned and bumped. Finally, it was righted and brought to rest.
Voices came to her through the walls for the first time ever; she deduced that the speakers were very close, and their voices were pitched higher than normal. One of them belonged to Gunnery Sergeant Grissom: "What are you doing? Just leave it in the safe."
"No," Alistair said. She could hear the faint beeps from the combination lock as he pressed the buttons. "I'm not leaving her in this fookin box."
"Chrissakes. It's a machine. And a damn dangerous one. Why take the chance?"
"Because, dangerous or not, we made her." The lock popped, but he didn't turn the handle to open the door. "Griss, if we can create something like this in our image, and treat it as shabbily as we have, and then finish with it by throwing it into the dark to die alone and wondering… we've got no right to hope for God's mercy, I'm thinking."
The handle turned, the latch clicked, and the door opened. Alistair stood at the opening, not 'smiling,' which was unusual; neither did he address her with his usual query about being a 'good girl' today. She wondered if she'd displeased him in some way.
As usual, Gunnery Sergeant Grissom stood just in view behind him, his 'gun' pointed over Alistair's shoulder at her. The device was not a projectile weapon like the ones that had been used on her during Test 502; but the man's handling showed it to be an artifact of similar purpose.
Alistair stepped back. "Come on oot, darlin."
She stepped out, studying him. Alistair's changed demeanor and elevated outputs gave rise to certain questions. She would have asked them, if the Sergeant had been out of hearing; when Alistair had learned of her injunction against unnecessary speech, he had told her she could ask him anything, as long as they couldn't be overheard. Such occasions were rare, but she'd taken advantage of every one of them, even though she often didn't understand his answers.
They were inside a large building, poorly lighted and above ground; she could hear the soft wind outside, different from the ventilators in the lab. The interior contained a great many objects covered with dusty translucent tarps. She dismissed her surroundings from her attention and focused on her handlers, trying to glean information from their anomalous outputs.
Grissom spoke over his weapon, if weapon it was. It was the first time he'd ever addressed her. "We're leaving. You stay right here. Guard this place. If somebody with no business here comes in, don't let him out alive, especially if he tries to take something. Understand?"
"Yes," she said. "I understand. No unauthorized entry, exit, or removal of artifacts." She waited, expecting further instructions for determining authorization, but they weren't forthcoming, and she wasn't allowed to inquire.
Alistair stepped between her and the Gunnery Sergeant, completely masking her from his fire. The soldier's heartrate spiked, and he shouted, "Out of the way, dammit!"
"Piss off, Griss!" Alistair said with equal force. He placed a palm on her cheek and leaned over to touch her forehead with his own. It occurred to her that he was close enough to put her arms around; her hands rose a centimeter before programming checked the motion. It wasn't the first time her no-contact injunction had been challenged by some mysterious impulse, but the alarm that had ensued when she'd kicked Randall in the crotch had strengthened the command.
With their foreheads still touching, he said in a low voice, "Just another test, Buttercup. Someone will be along to collect you. Conserve your power and stick it out. Wait."
She judged that they were private enough for a question. She looked up into his eyes, which she'd learned were useful outputs as well as inputs. "When will you come for me?"
His pupils contracted, and his heart jumped. "I don't know. It won't be me or Griss, likely. But they're bound to come to their senses and send someone for you. I just hope to God it's someone kinder." He turned away.
Reacquiring her, Sergeant Grissom said in a shaky voice, "You exceeded your orders, Bryce. Big time. And you're trashing protocol." His heartbeat, arrhythmic in times of agitation, slowed unevenly as his odd chemical emissions dissipated. She deduced he was recovering from a fright. His attitude towards her was another mystery. She hypothesized that he was easily frightened, and he had thus been given the 'gun' for reassurance.
"Bollocks, Griss. Who would you report me to? Seabrook's vanished, and none of us knew who he got our orders from. The project's finished; this was our final detail. When we get back, we'll already have new assignments. If we ever meet again, inside the Shop or out, we'll pretend the last fourteen months never happened. Give it a rest." Alistair walked past the armed man towards the big doors leading outside, from which came the sound of an idling engine. The sergeant followed, walking backwards with his gun trained on her.
She felt a desire to alleviate the upset the two men felt; she discovered that that desire was capable of overriding the weakest of her injunctions. Remembering Alistair's pleased reaction to her answer to his daily question, she said as the two men reached the door, "I'll be a good girl, I promise."
Alistair stumbled at the doorway. Grissom paused at the door, and his trigger finger took up a millimeter of slack. "Ah, fuck." The armed man took a final step back and slid the door closed. She heard the padlock rattle and click shut. Seventy seconds later, the idling engine changed pitch as the vehicle shifted gears, and the popping of tires on gravel commenced and receded. She listened to the vehicle for six minutes more, until its sounds faded beyond her hearing.
Cantyre County, North Channel, Scotland
He felt lightheaded. The stony outcrop he stood on seemed to shift beneath his feet. "I was no friend."
She was still on her knees. "You were the only one who really spoke to me. You saved my life in that warehouse three different ways. I was there for six years, Alistair. If you hadn't told me to conserve power, Andy's orders would have had me dead long before. If you hadn't told me someone would come for me, I would have killed the man who came to rescue me. And if you'd left me in that box, he never would have found me."
His own voice sounded far away. "How did you get Griss to tell you about me?"
"I asked. He thought it was a bad idea, that I shouldn't go chasing the past. But he's guilting over me, kind of, and he can't say 'no' to me." He heard a series of faint beeps, followed by faint ringing: a cellphone call. She tossed the phone over her shoulder towards him in a high arc. "It's for you."
He reached for it, stepping away from the cliff's edge unthinking to catch it with both hands. It rang once more, then picked up. "Hello? Annie? That you?" A well-remembered voice.
He watched her. She wasn't moving. He returned his attention to the phone. "Griss? That you?"
"Bryce? Son of a bitch. Is she with you?"
"Yes. I'm on her phone." He felt lightheaded: adrenaline letdown, perhaps, or the drink catching up with him finally.
"I know. Put her on."
The back of her head swung side to side.
"Ah, she doesn't want to come to the phone. She wants us to talk. Griss… is she all right?"
The man on the other phone lowered his voice. "Just what I was about to ask you. Don't hurt her, Alistair. She's been through enough."
"I heard that," she said. "He's still overprotective, isn't he?"
He returned his fading attention to the phone. "Griss. How do you know each other?"
"Chance meeting. Tremendous luck. You were right all along, Bryce. God forgive us for what we did. Tell her Drew misses her like crazy."
"Drew?"
"My grandson."
He felt even fainter. "I, I have to go now." He dropped the phone and fell.
